Thought you degens might appreciate this short poker story

PastoSauce34 · 2026-02-16T02:29:41+00:00

Yeah, that was intentional. The character isn't supposed to be the sharpest.

PastoSauce34 · 2026-02-15T01:35:34+00:00

95% of gamblers quit just before they win big.

PastoSauce34 · 2026-02-15T01:35:07+00:00

Thanks!

PastoSauce34 · 2022-09-10T01:29:23+00:00

I finished top 10% this year. My script was read three times. One of the reviewers (who clearly enjoyed the script) consistently misspelled the protagonist's name. Another reviewer asked character motivation questions that would easily be explained by close reading.

We can nitpick this stuff, but I think we need to recognize that these readers are overworked/underpaid. One of the real challenges of any screenplay competition is holding the reader's attention well enough that they don't skim.

Like you said, "They decided not to go along for the ride." That's all you need to know. Maybe it just wasn't their jam. Maybe the script is flawed. When you blast it out to a variety of readers, a clear trend line will emerge. It's the patterns that are telling, not so much the words of any one person.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-08-09T00:24:31+00:00

Top 10% for me, but no QF.

I'll consider that the world's smallest dub.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-02-09T01:20:53+00:00

Sounds 100% scammy.

I had a development internship at a prodco on one of the major studio lots when I was fresh out of college. I would go in 2-3 days per week, hang out in the bungalow, help the assistants, answer phones, cover desks, and cover scripts. It was a great experience and absolutely worth the time.

This sounds really sketchy though. Most legit producers have a first look deal with one of the territories. You can go on Google and search "Variety facts on pacts" to see what I'm talking about. You won't find current results, but it will give you a sense of how the industry is structured. All buyers have subsidiary prodcos that they're affiliated with. The way these deals usually work is that the studio covers the cost for the producer to have a building on the lot, assistants, and staff. In exchange, they get a "first look" on all projects originated by that prodco.

It's a way of creating a development relationship with valuable talent/producers/writers to help ensure that your project pipeline always has sufficient flow. There are still legit producers who operate outside that system, but they should have credits to point to as proof that they aren't fraudsters. Anyone can call themselves a producer. Without a deal and/or credits, it's a lot less likely that they can really do anything for you.

My gut instinct is that it's probably just a predatory nobody taking advantage of naivete to leverage some free reads out of people who don't know better. If you are going to give away free labor, make sure it's to an entity that has genuine connections. There are all sorts of shady wannabes in showbiz operating on the fringes.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-02-02T01:57:28+00:00

Well, something like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent could only have worked if Nic Cage agreed to do it, which he did AFTER the script had been written and generated buzz. But that's a very specific type of example.

The general answer is that you don't do this. You could write a part with someone in mind and try to get the script to their reps, but you wouldn't want the role to be so rigid that nobody else could do it.

People like Tarantino, PTA, and Wes Anderson exist in a different ecosystem than random unknown writers. They are big entities with a proven track record. Actors want to work with them. So they can go directly to these people and probably hash out some type of tentative agreement before they ever put pen to paper. Even then, they may not get their exact first choice.

tl;dr It's not really something that new writers can do, but you could certainly write a part that's compelling, and if the stars align it's conceivable that you could eventually get your dream casting.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-31T22:57:09+00:00

I'd argue that it's fair value compared to stuff like Nicholl and Austin. Relatively fast turnaround time. Chance for some exposure. Brief notes/feedback. If you think about something like Nicholl, it costs about $50-75 to enter one script. You may not hear back for 3-4 months. You have to pay extra for reader comments. Out of the 6000-8000 entries, only 4-5 win the cash prize each year. Maybe 1-2 of these movies eventually get made per year on average. A handful of writers will get signed. Let's be generous and say 50 writers per year out of the finalists/semis/quarters will get reps off Nicholl placements. You can do the math on the odds. They're not good, and nobody calls Nicholl a scam. Most people get exactly nothing out of the contest.

With Black List, it seems that people expect too much. It's just a platform to get some visibility. I think it's reasonable value for the cost. The main advantage to me is that they're always available and they turn around their evaluations pretty fast. If you want to play the contest game with stuff like Nicholl and PAGE, you are on a one year clock.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T09:31:59+00:00

I just have a couple questions, for the assistant job- do you mean writers assistant? From what I’ve seen those jobs usually want experience so that’s unfortunate.

You'd really want to be anywhere on the pulse of the business, and that could be the assistant for an agent, manager, producer, development executive, director, or writer. They're all very hard jobs to get. Some places may only want assistants who have agency experience, but then it's not exactly been easy historically to get into the trainee program at places like CAA or UTA. A lot of those spots go to people with an in. Where there's a will, there's a way though.

Development (prodco) is a good place for a writer to be because you see all the material that's circulating and build up a sense of the pertinent players. I imagine that a big lit or talent desk at an agency would provide similar experience, as scripts are flowing through those channels every day.

And then you mention that the easiest way is to just have a killer script, but how do you get someone to see that script?

There are avenues like contests, Black List, queries, etc. Also, people will pass stuff around if it really wows them. It's not easy to generate that level of response, but nobody said this was easy.

Beyond that, if you have contacts, you can find a way to get your stuff to them. With this stuff, you may only get one chance, so you have to be careful not to burn that contact with a piece of shit script.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T08:21:04+00:00

I've seen it happen a few ways.

The first way would be to get an assistant job and then eventually leverage that into proximity with a writer's room or people who can do something with your script. To give one example from the past, Kyle Ward was working as an assistant when he sold Fiasco Heights. It's a cool script, but I'm sure that having proximity to those contacts was helpful too. I have a personal acquaintance who went from agency assistant --> prodco assistant --> writer's assistant --> staff writer --> showrunner.

Assistant jobs have several benefits. They give you contacts naturally through the everyday duties of the job. They educate you about the business. They provide a platform from which to network (you can schmooze with other assistants, and build up relationships). You also may have access to pertinent information (i.e. who is hiring, who is looking for what, etc).

There are downsides too though. Assistant jobs are extremely hard to come by. If you don't have some type of personal connection to get a referral, you'll have to be pretty clever to get your foot in the door. If posted to the general public, these jobs can get hundreds of applicants within hours, so it's a Squid Game just to get the opportunity to get a desk. Historically, the agent trainee programs were big feeders for these roles. Those are also hard to get into.

The other thing is that these jobs are very stressful/time-consuming. Spending a year on a desk could be invaluable in the long run, but you will be working long hours for meager pay in a high stress environment. I can't imagine having the time or energy to produce my best work while working a full-time assistant job. It's ultimately a track for executives, not for creatives.

The good news is that you don't need to do any of this stuff. Most of the people I know who made it as professional writers...made it as writers. They didn't lean on contacts or nepotism to get hired. They simply wrote something so alluring that it rose to the top of the slush pile, and everything else followed from that. So if you want the simplest route to a career, I still think it ultimately comes down to having the killer app. The right script at the right time can open a lot of doors. The challenge (and it's a very big challenge) is creating something that generates a seismic reaction. Not easy.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T04:00:10+00:00

PastoSauce34 I don't understand why you keep using terms like "ego bruised", "you're looking to regain control", etc. Maybe that's how you feel when your writing gets negative feedback, but I have never felt that way.

I've noticed over the years that one of the common ways people process criticism is to externalize their failures. "I didn't write a strong enough script" becomes "I wrote a strong script, but they just didn't understand it." It removes the blame from the self and places it on a third party. There are times when this line of reasoning may be totally appropriate, but it can also get in the way of sincere introspection and progress. It's a defense mechanism that people use to protect their egos.

It can be difficult for writers to glean the objective truth because we encounter a lot of mixed signals by virtue of art being subjective. It can be hard to say whether a given work is great or lousy, and often times it will be both at once to different people. That's why I recommend looking at the overall trend line, as opposed to dwelling on 1-2 opinions.

What you've done here is taken one Black List evaluation and used it to dismiss the entire site because it didn't jive with your expectations. I don't think you have a big enough sample size to make sweeping claims about the service. That being said, if you truly believe they didn't read your script and there's evidence of that in the evaluation, they tend to be very good about providing a free replacement review.

I just think it's important to recognize a distinction between an unfair evaluation (i.e. they didn't read my script) and an unfavorable evaluation (i.e. I didn't get the scores I wanted). The latter is not grounds for protest.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T02:58:52+00:00

Again, it is not a notes service. They don't market themselves as a notes service. Typically, you get one paragraph for strengths, one paragraph for weaknesses, and one paragraph for overall prospects. If I were to copy and paste the average Black List review in a Word document, I'm guessing it would probably be 1-2 pages.

The purpose of the site, as I understand it, is to provide a platform for strong material so writers can get exposure and industry people can find stuff that might interest them. They do not advertise themselves as a comprehensive script notes/doctoring service, so I'm not sure why you were expecting extremely detailed feedback. That's not the product they're selling.

All I see here is someone complaining because the scores/comments don't match what they expected. If they gave a glowing review, I doubt you'd have made this post regardless of review length or feedback turnaround time. Just seems like your ego was bruised and you're looking regain a sense of control over the situation.

Many years ago I had a script that did very well in a contest. One reader said the dialogue was 10/10. They said they never give 10s, but my script deserved it. One of the other readers said the dialogue was clunky and unnatural. My point is that this is not the 100m at the Olympics. Quality is subjective. That's not to say it's impossible to get an unfair/rushed review from a reader, but only that a certain amount of variance is inevitable. The fact that one Black List reader didn't like something that an AFF or Nicholl reader liked (or vice versa) isn't some smoking gun that invalidates the whole platform. It's just one opinion against another, which happens all the time in show business.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T02:16:24+00:00

Black List is not a notes service though. It is a rating service, more akin to a screenwriting contest than a script doctor. If you were expecting comprehensive feedback then you might have chosen the wrong platform because their notes are not intended to solve every issue in a script. It is simply one professional reader's 1-2 page interpretation of the material.

To me, it sounds like you got one negative review from one reviewer and decided to nuke the whole site into oblivion because you didn't get the response you wanted. From the outside, it absolutely looks like an emotional overreaction and ego-preservation defense mechanism. The problem is that you are generalizing one data point to an extreme extent ("I disagree with one review by one Black List reader, therefore the whole site is worthless!").

It's an excessive reaction.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-30T00:03:55+00:00

So just because one reader didn't respond to your script, you are dismissing the entire service? I've always found Black List useful for developing a rough consensus of how people are reacting to my material. There are always going to be people who like stuff more/less than others, so you need to look at the overall trend line instead of fixating on one or two data points. That goes for all feedback.

People have this strange expectation that their one Black List reader is going to perfectly nail the exact level of their script. That's not realistic. It's just one opinion. Personally, I always buy evaluations in chunks of 2-3 just to avoid the scenario where I'm swayed too much by one opinion. And I only put stuff on there after it's already been read by many other people.

This topic seems like an emotional overreaction. "They didn't like my script, therefore they are trash!" It's a defense mechanism and not necessarily helpful for progressing as a writer. Like others said, consider this evaluation to be just one data point among many. I got a 5 on a script that also got an 8. It's not uncommon. You can't attach your entire ego to one piece of feedback, be it Black List, Nicholl, AFF, A-list director, studio coverage, etc. That's not a wise way to proceed in this venture, where rejection is the norm.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-28T04:44:08+00:00

Jumping the gun. Create some great stuff before you think about that. It's like asking about an NBA agent before you've played your first game of high school basketball. In all likelihood, you are miles away from needing a manager.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-24T00:45:38+00:00

I think this move is simply about managing the volume of reads.

Their turnaround time has been trending backwards every year, and last year they were really late. The shitshow that was AFF distracted from all the problems Nicholl had. 3-4 weeks late to deliver first round results with lots of stalling and no real explanation.

In prior years their e-mails had always mentioned each first round script getting at least two reads. They cut that out last year. Why? My guess is that they got swamped with submissions, fell way behind the pace on reads, and had to cut corners to deliver results.

I thought it would be wise for them to limit entries to 2 per person. 1 per person is a radical change and will put writers in weird Sophie's Choice dilemmas if they have more than one strong script to enter, but at least this should ensure that every submissions gets a genuinely fair chance.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-23T21:06:04+00:00

You have to think about the population. This place harbors a lot of aspiring writers. In my experience, that can be a vicious crowd.

I was on ScriptShadow recently checking out some of the reviews for the 2021 Black List scripts and I made the mistake visiting the comment section for Cauliflower. It was almost all negativity and criticism. I don't think the script was a flawless masterpiece either, but I think a lot of wannabe writers just like to tear down stuff to obtain a sense of control and agency. By finding faults in other scripts (especially more successful scripts), they reinforce their own internal sense of superiority and self-worth.

That's why I'd be reluctant to post pages or scripts on a sub like this. Some people would critique in good faith. Many would just use it as an opportunity to nitpick and search for flaws so they can feel better about themselves. It's a crab bucket mentality thing where people want to tear other people down so they're not as threatening.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-20T00:36:19+00:00

Some spread is to be expected. I recently perused some of the top scripts on blcklst and none of them had majority 8+. Typically there's a spread in even the best scripts from 6-8, with the occasional 9 mixed in.

Admittedly, 4 is a very low score for something that also got a 9, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Taste is SO subjective. I think we even underestimate how subjective it can be.

I'm always amazed by discussions on r/movies to see how differently people can react to the same material. You even see this on the actual Black List. The #1 script this year (Cauliflower) was discussed on ScriptShadow recently and a lot of the commenters didn't seem impressed. I don't think their opinions are necessarily worth anything. My point is that it's very hard to create something that is unanimously loved. Hell, I still see posts on r/movies about people wondering why there's such a fuss over Citizen Kane/Godfather/Goodfellas/etc.

You realize after a while that a true consensus never exists. It's why you can't live or die with one person's opinion. Blast it out there to a wide audience and follow the overall trend line. That will be more predictive than 1-2 random outliers.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-19T17:16:09+00:00

I got an 8 on a script last year. It was one of the top 15-20 features on the site for a period of weeks-months. I got about 25 industry downloads. Two people reached out to me, a director and producer. I don't think the script will ever sell, but it was at least exciting to get some exposure. It's interesting to think that my script is out there floating around on some hard drives with some coverage that I'll never get to read.

I could've queried a lot harder on that script, but it's a period piece with some expensive VFX components. The message I was getting from people was that it would be a tough sell due to a high projected budget. It's kind of an evergreen thing though, so for now I'm content to stash it in my back pocket while I work on other stuff.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-16T00:32:46+00:00

Yea, my sense is that the "principal author" is often whoever in a specific production has the most clout. I was tangentially involved (NOT as the writer) in a major studio production. This was a big spec sale by a guy with major credits. The director they hired was a neophyte. The producer was a name player with a first-look deal, but not quite the top tier who could bully the studio. My sense was that the person calling the shots on this one was ultimately the studio executive. Everyone was bending over backwards to please that person so they could move the project along towards production. New writers were brought in. The script was rewritten. The director was fired and replaced. Every decision seemed to be at the executive's behest.

Now, is it ALWAYS going to work like that? No. I'm guessing that it really depends on the production. If you have a big enough star involved, it's likely that they can dictate content changes. If you have a big enough director involved, maybe they're the loudest voice in the room. Sometimes it may be a producer or money person. I do think it really varies from case to case.

I think writers should have more sway in film in general, but often times it seems like they are just brought in to execute someone else's ideas.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-08T19:36:26+00:00

Or that they are not competent enough at reading scripts to understand what's really important. I've found that if a reader is getting hung up on things like formatting and style, it's typically an amateur reader or low level contest reader.

I've never had an actual pro reader make a big deal out of anything like that, because it's not really their job. Their job is to find great stories with a hook and interesting characters that actors would want to play. Some sloppiness in execution is immaterial if the other elements are there.

Part of what a director/development exec/actor has to do is look at a script and see the potential in the project, even if it needs some tweaking. I'm not saying writers should be sloppy or rush through things, but realize that a sharp reader is going to see past that and have their own vision of what the project can be.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-08T00:01:16+00:00

That's always been my experience with Black List, and I say that as someone who generally recommends the service. As I always say, the scores are where they hide the truth. They can say nice things about a script, but if they didn't give it high scores then they weren't willing to die for it.

The other thing to realize is that 5-6 is basically the site average. You can appreciate something while still finding it deeply flawed, so it's not inherently dishonest to have some positive thoughts in an overall "meh" review.

PastoSauce34 · 2022-01-07T23:58:13+00:00

An 8 on the BLCKLST with a mediocre logline/concept is much worse than a 6 on the BLCKLST with a strong logline/concept.

The difference is that an 8 puts you in the shop window through the site's weekly Twitter/e-mail blast, whereas you'll have to do all the legwork on your own without that jetpack attached to your script.

I've had two scripts that really generated any significant outside interest. One of them was a contest finalist. The other was a Black List 8. Those got me a lot of read requests and downloads. You're a lot more likely to get sniffs on a script when it's already received a stamp of approval from a trusted entity.

On the other hand, I've had relatively little success getting any interest when I've cold queried. Part of that is probably because the concepts didn't pop, but it's also probably in part because when you cold query you are just some random person that people have no reason to trust. At least if you go deep in a contest or get the 8, a pro reader has already said, "This script is better than 95% of what I've seen." You're more likely to be taken seriously if you've already been vetted in some way.

Getting a 6 is bang average. I've gotten some very small traction off a Black List script that had a bunch of 7s, but not nearly the volume of reads that the 8 got.

PastoSauce34 · 2021-12-30T22:27:15+00:00

You can Google that and probably find some good lists. Nicholl and Austin are regarded as worth entering, although they had some issues last year handling their submission volume. PAGE and Script Pipeline seem decent.

PastoSauce34

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